Could you be a Woodland Trust trustee? A brief for candidates

Transcription

1 Could you be a Woodland Trust trustee? A brief for candidates

2 WTML / Ben Lee (front cover), Adam Burton, Matthew Roberts, Phil Formby Welcome to the Woodland Trust and thank you for contemplating joining us. This is an ambitious and exciting time for the Trust, but not without its challenges! Woods and trees are under greater threat than ever before but this also presents us with opportunities. We re working hard to reach new audiences to stand up for trees, particularly people living in urban areas and from a broader range of ages and backgrounds. The new trustee positions we are seeking should bring skills from across general professional areas of expertise and/or land management experience and will be ideally placed to help us achieve our vision of a UK rich in native woods and trees, for people and wildlife. Your strengths could be just the ones we need to complement those of our other trustees and help us achieve the aims outlined in our 10-year plan. Best wishes Contents Barbara, Baroness Young of Old Scone Chair, The Woodland Trust Beccy Speight Barbara, Baroness Young of Old Scone, chair and Beccy Speight, chief executive 3 Who we are looking for 3 Who we are looking for About us 4 What we do 6 Under charity law the Woodland Trust* is governed by a board of trustees, who are volunteers. The trustees are also directors under company law. Who supports us? 7 Trustees are selected based on the skills and experience they bring to the organisation. Where is our estate? 8 We are looking for new trustees to join our Board from 2018 who can bring experience and expertise in: Our 10-year strategic plan 10 Role of the Board of Trustees 12 Candidate specification 14 Current trustees 15 How to apply 16 Chief executive, The Woodland Trust General professional/business skills Can you advise on law or finance or HR or other commercial skills which could transport us to a new level? Land management Do you have practical land management experience incorporating woodland and/or forestry? It won t be possible to broaden our reach and impact without diversity of thought and ideas, so we hope to hear from candidates from a broad range of backgrounds and at different career stages. * The Woodland Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales (No ) and in Scotland (No. SC038885). 3

3 The Woodland Trust is the UK s largest woodland conservation charity with over 1,000 wonderful woods in our care. Founded in 1972, our vision is a UK rich in native woods and trees, for people and wildlife. We were the first charity to stand against the spiralling threats to precious woods and trees, particularly ancient woodland, and we also restore damaged woods and create new UK native woodland. WTML / Phil Formby About us The pressure is growing 13% of the UK is covered in trees compared to a 37% average in Europe. Only 2% of UK land area is ancient woodland. 60% 50% of ancient woodland has disappeared in the last 80 years. of our animal and plant species have declined in the past 50 years. WTML / Jim Smith-Wright The state of woods and trees Our trees and woods are under real pressure. Right now, they face the increasingly devastating effects of climate change, new pests and diseases, and constant threats of loss and damage from inappropriate development and intensive land use. These factors compound the problems the UK countryside has faced for many years: having already lost so much woodland and other important habitats, we are often left with just small and fragmented areas. These isolated and vulnerable remnants may be cut off within landscapes of intense land management or beyond fenced boundaries, leading to poorer wildlife habitats which are less likely to recover from further harm or damage. Ancient woodland in particular contains some of the UK s most precious woodland habitats and supports over 200 of our rarest and most threatened species. In the last 80 years, half of all the ancient woodland that remained has been lost or damaged, much of it felled and replaced with non-native conifers or colonised by harmful invasive species. Today, the UK has only 2% ancient woodland cover, with little more than half of that retaining its mainly natural features. Despite this, 85% of ancient woodland is unprotected by government legislation. 4 5

4 What we do Who supports us? We aim to create resilient landscapes by: Engaging with people is at the heart of the work of the Woodland Trust, whether through the millions of visits to our woods each year, the thousands of hours contributed by volunteers, financial contributions from supporters, communities lobbying for and protecting ancient woodland or individual involvement in inspirational activity programmes from planting new woodlands to recording trees and nature. The Trust lobbies to convince governments that trees and woods are an effective solution to environmental and societal challenges and works with farmers and landowners to demonstrate the economic and environmental case for trees and woods. We educate and inspire young people through our activity programmes, and provide opportunities for everyone to simply enjoy free access to our estate of more than 1,000 woodlands across the UK. Protecting and preventing further loss of our ancient woodland, the UK s most precious habitat. Restoring native and ancient woodland and other natural habitats that have suffered from neglect, poor management or over planting in the past with non-native conifers. Planting millions of native trees on a national scale in order to restore and create wooded landscapes that will begin to repair the UK s countryside and provide resilience to future threats. 1. Protecting existing valuable habitats, including ancient woods and trees 2. Restoring natural habitats 3. Planting millions of trees Members and supporters Volunteers Organisations Much of the nation s woodland suffers from neglect, poor management or over planting with non-native conifers. Supporting positive management which opens up the woodland canopy gradually to let light in is vital if the many remnant species and plants are to survive and thrive once again. The planting of millions of native trees and the enablement of natural regeneration on a national scale is essential for the restoration and creation of wooded landscapes that will begin to repair the UK s countryside and make it more resilient to future change. This is a move away from the traditional conservation approach of focusing on isolated nature reserves. By planting new woodland, hedgerows, small copses and individual trees, we will connect with and support habitats such as grasslands, heath and moorland as well as other wooded areas. We aim to do this across whole landscapes, rural and urban. At the end of 2017, the number of members stood at over 240,000, including 56,000 family members. Volunteers play a vital role in helping us achieve our aims, and in 2017 alone donated 249,000 hours of work, worth an estimated value of 2.2 million. We work with landowners, farmers, local communities, local authorities, businesses, schools, and other NGOs to plant new woods and restore thousands of hectares of precious ancient woodland. The protection and celebration of urban trees is also increasingly part of our agenda, as collectively they make a vitally important contribution to the UK s tree cover providing homes for thousands of wildlife species and bringing many benefits to the people who live in our towns and cities. The Trust is at the forefront of championing the restoration of ancient woodlands throughout the UK, whether on our own estate or by providing advice and support to private landowners with ancient woodland sites. All Woodland Trust woods that are planted ancient woodland sites are in the restoration process. We use our 26,000 hectares estate as demonstration sites to showcase best practice in a variety of situations and our outreach team actively networks with landowners who are interested in the restoration of their own woods. What trees provide: 6 Since the Trust was founded, we have enabled the planting of 38 million trees, creating thousands of hectares of new native woodland. We encourage tree planting on others land too and send out thousands of free tree packs to schools and community groups so they can create their own copses and hedges. One of our most exciting plans for 2018 is drawing up a blueprint for a vast new Northern Forest along the M62 corridor, embracing the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and beyond. Homes and food for wildlife Attractive places for enjoyment and recreation Resources, such as timber Shade and shelter for crops and livestock Protection of vital soils reducing run-off and soil erosion Natural flood management Carbon lock-up Air pollution reduction Cleaner water Increased bio-diversity WTML / Matthew Roberts We fight for tougher safeguards for trees and woodland through our campaigns, lobbying government, and with the help of our supporters. We also work to raise the public s understanding and awareness of the importance of ancient woodland and why it needs protection. We have plans to develop a new UK-wide map of woods at risk and extend our network of volunteer threat detectors nationwide. 7

5 WTML / Michael Cooper, Mark Zytynski, John MacPherson. Where is our estate? The Woodland Trust owns more than 1,000 woods across all areas of the UK: Scotland The woods owned by the Woodland Trust in Scotland stretch from Stranraer in the south up to Sutherland in the north. In total, nearly a fifth of Scotland s land is covered by trees, but less than a third of that is native woodland. Northern Ireland Historically, woods have had a poor deal in Ireland, with woodland clearance beginning as far back as the Neolithic period around 6,000 years ago. However, we recently bought a new piece of land in the stunning Faughan Valley (pictured), thanks to our partnership with Nationwide Building Society. Their employees and members went on to plant 4,000 trees in this special landscape, which will link with the pockets of precious old woods that dot the banks of the River Faughan and open up miles of woodland and riverside walks. This will create a continuous corridor for the valley s wild inhabitants, including the vulnerable red squirrel. The largest property in our Scottish estate is Glen Finglas which lies in the heart of Scotland s first national park Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. The site covers over 4,800 hectares and is steeped in history, at one time forming part of the royal hunting forest. It attracts thousands of visitors each year who come to marvel at the panoramic mountainous landscapes. A fantastic acquisition is Loch Arkaig Pine Forest one of the UK s most significant fragments of remaining native Caledonian pinewood. With its rare wildlife and flora, this vast forest is a hugely exciting purchase for the Trust, helped by one of our most successful appeals ever. It is estimated that it will cost 4m to restore over the next two decades. One of the most wonderful ancient woods in Northern Ireland is Drumnaph Wood which lies at the gateway to the Sperrin Hills. This beautiful ancient woodland is a precious jewel with flower-rich woods, Irish hares and rush meadows, and one of the few remaining fragments of a great forest that once covered much of mid-ulster. England The first wood acquired by the Trust was in the Avon Valley in Devon. We now have a good spread of sites across the country from Northumberland to Cornwall, Hereford to Essex. They include rural and urban sites, ancient and newly-created woods. Wales Currently, Wales is one of the least-wooded countries in Europe but the Welsh Government has adopted an ambitious target of creating 100,000 hectares of additional woodland over a 20-year period. The Woodland Trust is keen to help deliver this. In 2016, Heartwood Forest in Hertfordshire became the first of our ten planned destination sites and was accredited by VisitEngland as a quality assured visitor attraction. Two other destination sites have been identified in England Tring Park, also in Hertfordshire, and Skipton Castle Woods in north Yorkshire and there will be more to come across the UK. Monmouthshire, however, is one of the few places in Britain where you can gaze across wave upon wave of wooded hills. The Trust owns some lovely sites in the area and our challenge now is to link them so that birds, bats and other creatures can migrate across a more resilient countryside. It s one of our new Treescape regions across the UK, where we ll be targeting our work to bring landscape-scale change. One of our most recently acquired sites was the Smithills Estate just outside Bolton. This is the largest site ever acquired in England by the Woodland Trust. Many features are in need of restoration but this is still a wonderful place to visit, and over the next few years the Trust will preserve and enhance this iconic landscape for the benefit of people and wildlife. We purchased Cefn Coch, a neglected and ecologically degraded area of land in the Cambrian Mountains in mid-wales. It s a partnership with Wales Wild Land Foundation and the aim is simple: to demonstrate how this unloved and neglected grazing land can be transformed through working with natural processes into an amazing place where wildlife can roam and thrive. 8 9

6 WTML / Michael Heffernan Our 10-year strategic plan Our vision for the next few years is to create more resilient landscapes in the UK and move the relationship many people have with woods and trees from a passive to a more active one. To achieve this ambition, the Trust needs a bigger voice, a bigger estate, more partnerships, an ability to influence more, perform better as one team and more security of income. Our 10-year strategic plan sets out what we need to do to achieve this, and by the end of 2025 we aim to have: planted a tree for everyone in the UK improved protection of ancient woods continued championing the role of trees delivered real landscape change in a more powerful voice that reaches more and other valued woodland geographical focus areas through protection, restoration and creation increased our estate to improve resilience to external pressures and provide more engagement opportunities for visitors and woods to ensure their benefits are recognised and valued more widely people with influence stronger leadership and collaboration, with everyone advocating the cause increased some of our current income streams and grown new income sources created a number of showcase woodlands implemented a clear supporter journey, grown a mass movement of people who devolved decision-making further and with a unique offer to attract higher visitor numbers love trees and woods and are ready to take supportive action when needed many more active volunteers engaged with people in urban areas helped by 1.5M Woodland Trust supporters of whom 0.5M are financially active changed our organisational shape accordingly developed systems that have high usability and are fit for purpose as well as in rural and shown we care about individual trees as well as woods 10 11

7 Role of the Board of Trustees The overarching role of the Board of Trustees is to optimise the charitable benefit achieved in fulfilment of the Trust s charitable objectives. In order to help the charity achieve its 10-year strategic plan, the specific duties of the Board are to: provide strategic leadership for the charity and its charitable objectives agree the strategy, activities, policies and resource allocation for delivery ensure propriety and effectiveness of fundraising approve key performance measures, budgets and policies review the organisation s performance and hold the management team to account for delivery, through evaluating performance against agreed targets report for the organisation (eg annual report and review) appoint, supervise and support the CEO promote and safeguard the brand and reputation of the organisation ensure compliance with all statutory and regulatory requirements ensure appropriate consideration and management of risk engage with and enlist support, including financial support, from a wide range of supporters and stakeholders. There is also a review of trustee engagement after the first year of service. The Board currently has three standing committees, the Board Affairs Committee (BAC), which deals with governance matters and appointments, the Remuneration Committee and the Finance Committee (of which members also comprise the Audit and Investment Committees). 12 In addition to being on the Board and on a committee, trustees may also wish to fulfil some wider roles, such as ambassador for the Trust, using their own networks for advocacy and fundraising; championing different areas of the Trust; and mentoring senior members of staff. WTML / Michael Heffernan, Dawn Monrose, Edward Parker, Jane Corey. The Board will generally comprise around 10 to 12 trustees, one of whom is the chair. Trustees are appointed for four years which can be extended by a further four-year term following a review and mutual agreement. 13

8 At this time, we are specifically seeking skills and experience in law or finance or HR or other commercial skills or land management. WTML / Nick Spurling. Candidate specification Current trustees We are also seeking to increase the diversity of our Board, and would welcome applications from BAEM candidates In addition we look for the following qualities, skills and experience in the trustees we appoint: 1 Essential Desirable A willingness to commit at least 12 days Understanding and experience of what a year to the Trust Board meetings last up to a day and currently take place on a quarterly basis. In addition, there is an annual two-day site visit, committee meetings, and other events to attend. General Board skills: ability to contribute to discussions; focus on key issues; build and accept collegiate decisions; scrutinise Board papers; and challenge management constructively; as well as a clear understanding of what it means to be a non-executive director on a Board An ability to think strategically A good team worker Demonstrable integrity and objectivity in decision making Ambitious on behalf of the Trust. makes different organisations tick Relevant networks and a willingness to use them on behalf of the Woodland Trust Experience of operating at Board level Experience as a non-executive director or trustee An ability to understand financial information Experience of managing/governing in a context of significant organisational growth Sufficient experience to hold management to account in areas such as finance, external affairs, brand and communications, forestry estate management, conservation, land and property management, legal, investment, digital, fundraising, health and safety and people management Willingness to help fundraise Willingness to give time outside Board meetings, including for representing the Woodland Trust externally at meetings/events All our trustees need to have certain qualities, such as integrity, commitment and a passion for our cause. Barbara, Baroness Young of Old Scone (chair) Barbara is a Member of the House of Lords with special interests, among others, in the environment, agriculture, natural resources and climate change. She is chancellor at Cranfield University and her voluntary positions include president of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust; honorary president of the South Georgia Heritage Trust; patron of Lantra; and vice president of RSPB, Bird Life International and Flora and Fauna International. 2 David Babbs David has 15 years experience working in environmentalism and campaigning. He s the CEO of 38 Degrees, which he helped launch in 2009 and has helped grow into one of the UK s largest campaigning organisations. He s passionate about people power, democratic participation, and the importance of giving everyone a stake in protecting the planet. He loves the outdoors and is a keen gardener, cyclist and hill walker. 3 Humphrey Battcock Humphrey was a managing partner at Advent International, one of the world s largest and most global private equity firms. He has worked in private equity for 30 years, during which time he has served on the boards of 23 companies in a variety of industries. He also serves on the Cambridge Campaign Board, is a trustee of the Institute of Research in Schools, and lectures at Oxford Business School. 4 Michael Greenwood Mike has long experience in programme making and commissioning in BBC Radio and TV and as an independent producer. He has worked with many organisations to increase their impact via digital media. He teaches, writes and has an interest in the cultural history of woodland Patrick Macdonald An engineer by training, Patrick is chairman of Reconomy, a privately owned recycling business. He is co-founder of the School for CEOs. Previously, he was chief executive of John Menzies plc. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a companion of the Chartered Management Institute and the chairman of Inenco, a privately owned energy consultancy. 6 Paul Nevett Paul has spent his career mostly in food and drink marketing, working in Danone and Unilever. Most recently he ran the consumer marketing for the Unilever corporate brand across international markets. He is a lifelong believer in conservation and is passionate about the natural world. He has had the privilege to be able to drive projects that deliver sustainability benefits, and build brands with value. 7 Julia Smithies Julia is a chartered accountant and retired from PwC after 33 years where she led various parts of the tax practice and held senior strategic and governance roles. Julia is also a member of the advisory board for the International Opera Awards. 8 Richard Sykes Richard is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a recently retired partner of PwC where he led the governance, risk and compliance-facing initiatives. He is currently chairman of Brand Finance and a non-executive director of Buro Happold as well as a board member of the England Hockey Board and Middlesex County Cricket Club. Sally Benthall Sally worked for 30 years in environmental conservation, first for WWF-UK and then for the Galapagos Conservation Trust, which she helped to establish. She is part of the Campaign Council of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and a founding trustee of LandWorks, providing a supported route back into the community for prisoners. 15

9 WTML / Jill Jennings. Appointment process and how to apply The Woodland Trust is being supported in these appointments by the search firm Trustees Unlimited who will assist in the assessment of candidates against the role and identify the widest possible field of qualified and diverse candidates. Applications should consist of a full curriculum vitae along with a covering letter of application briefly addressing the role and candidate specification as well as your motivation for applying. Completed applications should be uploaded to via the Woodland Trust vacancy page TU5646. Please remember to state which role you are applying for. The closing deadline is 09:00 hours on Monday 17 September Longlisted candidates will be invited to meet with Trustees Unlimited on Wednesday 26 September and the afternoon of Thursday 27 September in central London, following which the selection panel will agree a shortlist. Please advise at time of application if these dates present a problem so that every effort to accommodate can be made. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to meet informally with the chair and chief executive of the Woodland Trust on Friday 12 October in Grantham. Panel interviews are being scheduled for Wednesday 17 October, in London. The appointments will be made subject to receipt of satisfactory references. To discuss this opportunity in more detail, our recruitment advisers Trustees Unlimited would be pleased to hear from you and can be contacted on to speak with Ian Joseph; or to speak with Emma Patmore

10 The Woodland Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales no and in Scotland no. SC A non-profit making company limited by guarantee. Registered in England no The Woodland Trust logo is a registered trademark /18 WTML / Adam Burton.